(Puneet Kollipara/Fuel Fix)
The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday unveiled first-ever national standards requiring power plants to reduce emissions of mercury and other toxic pollutants. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson called the new rule a “great victory for public health,” with benefits that far exceed the costs.
The rule’s finalization represents a major victory for environmental and health groups, and it comes just months after President Obama upset them by shelving tougher ozone standards until 2013. Its supporters said the new regulation ends 21 years of waiting for controls over toxic power plant emissions. Congress tasked the EPA with limiting toxic air pollution in 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments.
“There has been an enormous health toll to the failure to clean up that mess, and today is a long-overdue and just day of reckoning to finally require that cleanup to happen,” John Walke, clean-air director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group, said in an interview.
In a video posted to YouTube, Obama said the long wait for the standards was “wrong. Today my administration is saying, ‘Enough,’” Obama said.
(Read more at Fuel Fix)
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OPINION:
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- Bob Ottenhoff & Greg Ulrich: How We Can Get More Money to Deserving Charities (Chronicle of Philanthropy)